Tag Archives: Philosophy of the Pseudo Absolute

Philosophy refers to the study of general problems mostly concerning matters such as existence, truth, knowledge etc. Pseudo is used to signify that something is false, fraudulent or it is not whatever it is pretending to be, and Absolute refers to a concept of philosophy. Thus the Philosophy of Pseudo Absolute describes any idea or system that is taken to be a philosophy but it significantly fails to meet scholarly standards of philosophy. So in simple terms it is something which is pretending to be a philosophy.

A popular scholar called Nicholas Rescher referred Philosophy of Pseudo absolute as deliberations that masquerade as philosophical but which in fact are found to be inept, incompetent, and deficient of intellectual seriousness and they reflect on an insufficient commitment to the pursuit of truth. This has been the basic definition of pseudo philosophy that is commonly used in academic rounds.

Over a period of time pseudo philosophy has been found in academics or some scholars have been accused of pseudo philosophy. These pseudo philosophies have brought forward by fellow scholars while trying to justify each others work. Pseudo philosophy was quoted in academia in works by:

Hegel

Hegel is a scholar who was born in Germany and his colleagues and he came up with philosophies such as those for ethical life, importance of history. Hegel and his colleagues developed a concept of mind or spirit that later integrated and united. His philosophy was said to be a pseudo philosophy by Arthur Schopenhauer. He said that Hegel and his colleagues’ deliberately sound impressive but are without truth. The works sound impressive but they contain no verifiable content Arthur said of Hegel’s works. Despite this Hegel is still considered as an influential writer in world history.

Postmodernism

Accusations of pseudo philosophy have also been made against postmodernist Martin Heidegger. Richard Dawkins who is a biologist claims that modernists are generally intellectual con artist or tricksters who come up with weak ideas with difficult to understand wordings. In this claims he also included other modernist like Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Gilles Deleuze and Jean Luc Nancy. Another scholar who has accused these philosophers is Alan Sokal who said that the philosophers used scientific concepts but they lacked in rigor. Claims of pseudo philosophy have gone to as far as some scholar protesting to Cambridge University for awarding Jacques Derrida an Honorary degree; they claimed that his work did not meet the accepted standards of clarity.